Difference between element and atom?

Let me see if I can explain this. An atom is the smallest part of an element that retains all the chemical and physical charecteristics or properties of that element. For example an atom of oxygen exhibits all the chemical and physical properties of oxygen. However if you break the atom down you'll get electrons, neutrons and protons. Mixture of sub atomic particles will not retain the chemical and physical properties of oxygen. Analogy: Living organisms (oxygen) has DNA(atom). DNA contains all the charecterictics of a particular organism. If you break down the DNA into a bunch of A,T,G,C (subatomic particles) they will not exhibit the characteristics of that organism.

An atom is ONE of whatever element you are looking at. Everything else in the universe, that is not an element, is made up of elements chemically bonded together...and we will not confuse this issue with the quarks and other stuff inside of protons and neutrons, etc. A box of element humma contains atoms of humma.

Let's try this... an element is composed of only one type of atom. The difference is in the mass of the element. An element can be as small as a single atom and weigh only as much as that atom... or that element may be a large quantity of that atom and weigh tons.

Simple. The atom is the building block of the element. This means that the element is a huge number of atoms of the same kind joined together! For example, Aluminum is an element. If you have a piece of pure Aluminum foil like the one you use in wrapping your food, that single foil or sheet is made up of billions and trillions of Aluminum atoms bonded together by strong forces. Taking your example of Oxygen as an element, Oxygen is usually a gas at room temperature. So if you have a bottle of pure Oxygen gas, that means there are millions or billions of Oxygen atoms in that bottle floating around in pairs, the various pairs of atoms bumping against one another. These pairs are called Oxygen molecules, represented as (O2). The 2 is a subscript. Therefore you could compare your question to a question like: "What is the difference between A CONCRETE BRICK and the WALL OF A HOUSE build with concrete bricks?" I hope that helps.

Simply put, an atom is the smallest particle of an element that has all the properties of that element.